OK, so they actually haven’t been playing bad defense, it just seems like it after seeing Delmon Young, Alejandro De Aza, and Travis Snider out there on a regular basis. Matt Perez’s suggestion to trade for Victorino is certainly an interesting one. And while we’re almost 2 months into the 2015 season, it’s probably a little too early to expect any sort of trade that would bring back a major upgrade to the ballclub in one of the outfield corners. Furthermore, despite rumblings that Chris Parmelee may be called up from AAA to provide some offense in the outfield, an upgrade is unlikely to be found in the Orioles minor league system. Let’s take a look at what’s available.

Outfielders on the 40-Man Roster

All of them are actually already on the major league roster. I could end this section right there, but that would be lazy. Just because a player isn’t listed as an outfielder on the 40-man roster doesn’t mean that he can’t play the outfield. However, even taking that broader view, that still doesn’t leave the team with many options. Other than the obvious candidates, there is Jimmy Paredes and Henry Urrutia. We know that Paredes can hit (at least he has this year), but he’s only logged just over 400 innings in the outfield during his major league career, producing -4 DRS (-7.7 UZR/150). As for Urrutia, I don’t think Baltimore views him as an outfield option anymore (on the 40-man roster, he’s listed as a DH).

Outfielders Not on the 40-Man RosterThe table below shows how the options at Norfolk are performing so far in 2015.

As you can see, no one is exactly lighting the world on fire down there, except for maybe Parmelee, and he’s not even listed as an outfielder on the Orioles website. As Matt Kremnitzer noted, it’s not as if Parmelee would even be an upgrade, as he owns a career 97 wRC+ in the major leagues (901 PAs) and has been -7 DRS in just over 1,050 innings in the outfield.

Let’s take a look at how the outfielders in Bowie are hitting.

The stat lines of these players look slightly better, but they’re also another level further from the major leagues. Quincy Latimore is a former Pirates prospect who is now 26 years old and has never played above AA. Glynn Davis is having a promising season, but he is only in his first full year of AA, and is not considered a prospect (MLB.com left him off their top 30 list prior to the season). The best of this bunch is Mike Yastrzemski, who was ranked the 10th best prospect in the Orioles system before the season by both Baseball Prospectus and MLB.com (Baseball America had him 9th and he didn’t make the cut on Keith Law’s list). Still, both MLB.com and BP see Yastrzemski as a slightly below average player at his peak, so it’s unlikely he’d be a difference maker, especially in 2015.

Purchasing the contract of one of the players not on the 40-man roster shouldn’t be an obstacle. But if that’s the route the team decides to take, they’ll need to clear a spot to make room for Matt Wieters when he comes off the 60-day disabled list (he’s currently rehabbing in Bowie). At that point, they’ll risk losing whoever they remove from the 40-man roster to any of the other 29 teams on waivers.

With no help down in the minors and the trade market still in its earliest stages of development, the Orioles best option in the corner outfield positions may be to just stand pat. The return of Jonathan Schoop and/or Ryan Flaherty should allow Steve Pearce to return to an outfield position, where hopefully his batted ball luck will regress in the positive direction, providing some much needed production. Sometimes the best course of action one can take is to wait.

18 comments:

For what it's worth, Nolan Reimold has been hitting much better over the last couple of weeks. And it's not just results - he's been making harder contact during that span than he was earlier in the year. You're right - no one at Norfolk is going to solve the problem, but it's worth keeping an eye on Reimold.

Joe, that's good to know, thanks. Other than Parmelee, Reimold was the only other person that I thought could POSSIBLY come up and produce, but that was based mostly on the non-injured portion of his previous time in the majors, not what he was currently doing at AAA. But you're right that it's definitely worth keeping an eye on him

I still think the best plan is to stick with the guys we have. I'd like to Snider get more playing time, at the expense of Young. If our infield can get healthy, Pearce can jump into the picture too. While none of those guys have been knocking the cover off of the ball, their track records suggest they are better than any internal options, and likely better than any realistic external option.

The problem is that the Orioles have a number of outfielders that can play LF but considerably fewer that can play RF. Snider is unlikely to receive more playing time at the expense of Young because Young is used at right field and Snider is proving he can't play that position in Camden Yards. That's why I would ignore their UZR results and just measure their performance based on the fact that they've been sent to the bench.

Adding someone like Reimold or Parmalee would allow the Os to put De Aza in RF while putting the new player in LF. But it's questionable whether the Os would rather have De Aza, Davis(!) or Young in right field and it's certainly clear that neither are known for having good defense.

Duquette gets a lot of praise for finding fringe talent that produces big like Paredes. What gets lost is that he brings in a load of crap to find those hidden desirable nuggets. Probability worked against him here because all he has in corner outfield production so far this year is crap. That means loading off pieces either by trade or simply releasing them to see if anyone else can produce better than the crap so far. Problem is that I think he is caught in between guys with no options and no one looking all that interesting at Norfolk. In such a situation, GMs tend to cling to guys with the most veteran experience.

The outfield has not been spectacular, but the real offensive "black hole" seems to be the production from first base, second base, and shortstop. It seems all the available options there (Davis, Pearce, Cabrera, Hardy) are either south of or just north of the Mendoza line. No surprise the team is having trouble scoring runs when one-third of the lineup are consistently making outs. This goes up to almost one-half of the lineup when in an NL park and losing the DH.

once again the other blaring evidence is free agents would rather play elsewhere than Baltimore, at least the 1st tier ones. i still say Duquette was distracted with all the Toronto talk and didn't do due diligence for the Orioles in getting the help the team needed. also i'm really happy that they let Cruz go to Seattle because it was "highly" unlikely he would duplicate his HR total of 40. with his 18th today i'd say he's on a pace to hit more than 40. wonder how that would factor in to the outfield situation this year?

Power aside (there is none), Markakis is having a decent start to the season, especially by posting his best walk rate since 2008. His average is good, but it's also due to a career high (so far) BABIP. The high LD% may support that BABIP, but he's making virtually the same amount of "hard" contact as he did last year, so I'd expect that average to com down. Personally, I'd rather be in the Orioles situation this year than be tied to Markakis at $11 million for the next 3 years.

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Jon Shepherd - Founder/Editor@CamdenDepotStarted Camden Depot in the summer of 2007. By day, a toxicologist and by night a baseball analyst. His work is largely located on this site, but may pop up over at places like ESPN or Baseball Prospectus.

Matt Kremnitzer - Assistant Editor@mattkremnitzerMatt joined Camden Depot in early 2013. His work has been featured on ESPN SweetSpot and MASNsports.com.

Patrick Dougherty - Writer@pjd0014Patrick joined Camden Depot in the fall of 2015, following two years writing for Baltimore Sports & Life. He is interested in data analysis and forecasting, and cultivates those skills with analysis aimed at improving the performance of the Orioles (should they ever listen).

Nate Delong - Writer@OriolesPGNate created and wrote for Orioles Proving Ground prior to joining Camden Depot in the middle of 2013. His baseball resume includes working as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions and as a Video Intern for the Baltimore Orioles. His actual resume is much less interesting.

Matt Perez - Writer@FanOfLaundryMatt joined Camden Depot after the 2013 season. He is a data analyst/programmer in his day job and uses those skills to write about the Orioles and other baseball related topics.

Joe Reisel - WriterJoe has followed the Norfolk Tides now for 20 seasons. He currently serves as a Tides GameDay datacaster for milb.com and as a scorer for Baseball Info Solutions (BIS). He is computer programmer/analyst by day.

Joe Wantz - WriterJoe is a baseball and Orioles fanatic. In his spare time, he got his PhD in political science and works in data and analytics in Washington DC.